The News Journal finally got around to report the opening of bike lanes on the St. Georges Bridge and as expected a flurry of negative comments followed in the online version. Of the ten comments listed not one was supportive (but several were matter-of-fact or neutral).“Just wait for a accident on the Rt 1 bridge and we will see what happens to the bike lane. Plus to exit off the bridge going south cars have to cross the bike lane and going north to exit 13 to S. St Georges you have to cross the bike lane. I like to know the IQ of the person who came up with that plan.”

“You’d have to be a friggin’ idiot to ride a bike on that bridge. Theres no divide between the traffic lane and the bike lane! Theres no escape path if some bonehead driving a car is checking email, twittering, texting, playing with ipod, shaving, eating a sandwich, etc. and drifts over into the bike lane. Not to mention if you get hit by a car on that bridge, theres a good chance you’ll be thrown off the side to a certain death.“

“There is no way I would ride a bike on that bridge with no barriers between the biker and the motorist. I can clearly see this is going to be a big mistake to do this. Some idiot is going to be driving in the bike lane.“

Paying attention to people who waste time commenting on news stories is not really worth the disk space, however it does remind us that a certain percentage of the population doesn’t like the idea of bike lanes or the presence of bicyclists on public roadways. As we push DELDOT and other agencies to give us more space the pushback will only get stronger and we as bicycle advocates need to ready and organized to fend off these attacks.

One Response to News Journal Story On The St. Georges Bridge Bike Lanes

staff

July 12, 2010 at 10:22 am

I am a bicyclist and bicycle advocate. Having bike lanes on the St. George Bridge is better than not having bike lanes. But the skeptical comments are fair. A bike lanes does not offer any physical protection to a cyclist if an inattentive driver wanders into the lane; for the vast majority of casual cyclists, a bike lane offers very little sense of subjective safety; and a bike lane on a high speed road also fails the "8 year old test" (i.e., would a parent be happy to have their 8 year old bike there?)

It important that we don't confuse our allies with our opponents. People criticizing bike lanes are not "pushing back" against us. They're encouraging us to do better infrastructure.